Social marketing possibly yielding AIDS success

Social marketing campaigns to promote behaviour change may be responsible for Kenya's reduced HIV/AIDS infection rates, according to Warren Buckingham, the US resident global AIDS coordinator. Although it was unknown how much social marketing and behaviour-change campaigns had contributed to the decline, Buckingham noted there was evidence that more people were using condoms and delaying the onset of sexual activity. "All of those things have contributed, but I wouldn't be in a position to say they are the driving factor in reducing [HIV] prevalence," the local Nation newspaper quoted him as saying. The 2005 UNAIDS Epidemic Update showed that Kenya's overall adult infection rate decreased from a peak of 10 percent in the late 1990s to seven percent in 2003.